


Negotiations

by NevillesGran



Series: Storm King AU [3]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Alcohol, Mind Control, Sleep Deprivation, somebody please help Gil; Theo and Sleipnir are trying but they don't know what's really wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 11:16:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5288663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevillesGran/pseuds/NevillesGran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to Politics. Another laboratory, another castle, about a year and a half later. This is not the happy part of the story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Negotiations

No good airship ever really sleeps. There’s always somebody on watch, or keeping an eye on the engines, or making sure the boat doesn’t go off-course. On smaller ships, it’s all one person. No good city ever sleeps, either. There are always those up early making bread or those up late finishing work or those just out, maybe drinking or dancing or wandering the streets because restlessness nagged at their feet and adventure called them into the dark.

Castle Wulfenbach, being both city and ship, had lights on and people moving every second of the day. Some nights were still calmer than others, with dimmed hallways and only essential crew bustling and regretting their hours of work. This night, with negotiations in progress on the secession of the latest bunch of towns from the Wulfenbach Empire to the burgeoning Royal Federation, was not one of those peaceful nights. The day’s meetings were over and there was no actual violence—outside, perhaps, the bars on the bottom-port decks—but the service crew were managing the whims of dozens more politicians than usual, from the Mayor of the 40-citizen Weinhelm to the Storm King himself—not to mention all their accompanying staff. Everyone’s security details were antsy, lackeys scuttled back and forth with notes and new spy reports from the day’s discussions, and quieter conversations were still happening in darkened back rooms throughout the ship. It was a night for Business.

Baron Wulfenbach himself sat alone in one of his old secret laboratories, using an empty slab as a footrest while he read reports on bridge repairs throughout the Empire since the spring floods. At least, he was turning the pages. A few meters away, a half-built flying machine collected dust on a locked bay door, unworked-on for over two months. Beside him on the workbench were more papers, waiting, and a jumble of bottles and a plate of with a few scraps of fish and chips. The papers were his; the food and remains of drinks were left behind not half an hour ago by a couple of the few people in the world who still called him “Gil” and made him laugh, or at least care enough to fake it. The alcohol had helped.

There was a faint pneumatic hiss from the wall and the young Baron tensed but refused to look up as a panel slid aside and the Storm King strode in, eyes flashing.

“Remind me why I can’t have Tweedle hung upside-down and publicly _flayed_.” The King’s hands clenched like they would rather be wrapped around his cousin’s neck.

“Because he’s too prominent a figure for the Fifty Families not to feel threatened as well,” Wulfenbach recited like he was checking boxes. “And has too much influence on his own for you to not get pushback. And it wouldn’t mesh with your public image. What would the people think of their favorite benevolent ‘king’? _And_ ,” he dropped into a drawl, still not looking up from his papers, “what excuse would you have to barge in on me and start complaining?”

Sturmvoraus opened his mouth to riposte, then narrowed his eyes at the Baron and turned it into an incredulous, “Are you _drunk?_ ”

“Somewhat.”

Sturmvoraus picked up one of the bottles and sniffed at it in distaste. “Ah, DuMedd’s latest.” Another decanter was still smoking faintly. “And engine whiskey from Princess Sleipnir.”

Wulfenbach made a noncommittal grunt. His shoulders were rigid.

Sturmvoraus set the dishes on the slab by the Baron’s feet and took the cleared space on the bench, glancing at the papers as he pushed them aside. “It was well done of you to cancel her engagement. Put West New Erin right into my camp.”

“I didn’t do it for _you_.”

“No, I suppose you didn’t. You would do something stupid like that anyway.” He snorted. “I’m surprised you didn’t keep them talking until they’d have seen me arrive.”

 _Then_ Wulfenbach looked up, with eyes too red and sunken in skin too pale to be well. But acid and flame spat in his voice. “What, when your _orders_ were to be here alone? I am _not_ giving you an excuse to go after them. When I break your damn ‘Federation’ and expose you as an _evil,_ _two-faced snake_ , it will be as _public_ and _unerasable_ _as_ _possible_.”

Sturmvoraus recoiled, but not in much of a flinch. “Storms, Wulfenbach, you really are drunk.”

“Makes it easier to look at you.”

“When was the last time you _slept?_ ”

“With _you_ on my ship?” Wulfenbach shrugged. “I haven’t.”

“I’ve been here for a day and a half. _Answer me_.”

Wulfenbach gritted his teeth. “Four nights ago.” He spoke like each word was dragged from him on barbed fishhooks.

“For _how long?”_

“Two, three hours.”

“That’s it.” Sturmvoraus stood up. “You—”

Wulfenbach’s feet came down. “Don’t you _dare_ —”

“Even _you_ can’t subsist entirely on stubbornmindedness. You’ll get sloppy.” He gave the Baron’s disheveled appearance a onceover and another derisive sniff. “You already _are_. We’ll talk tomorrow, after lunch. I don’t have any instructions that can’t wait until then. Meet—”

Wulfenbach got to his feet to glare at the Storm King properly, bloodshot eyes and loose-hanging clothing and all. “You can use me as a game piece to take over my empire or you can be my nursemaid,” he growled. “But you _can not_ do both.”

“I _can_ and I evidently _must_ ,” Sturmvoraus retorted sharply. “Wulfenbach, go to _bed_.”

Wulfenbach took a lurching step away from the lab bench, then stopped and waved the reports he was still holding in the Storm King’s face. They were more crumpled than they used to be, in his clenched fist. “I have _work_ to do.”

Sturmvoraus picked up the top paper from the pile on the bench. “This is a summary of all those. Either you’re too tired to notice or you’re making extra work for no reason. Don’t do that. Is the recording still doing its job?”

Wulfenbach’s hand went to a small brass stud in his ear, unnoticeable until he pushed his hair aside. “Yes,” he said dully.

“Then this can wait until tomorrow,” Sturmvoraus said firmly. “Go back to your bedroom, lie down, and sleep until someone wakes you up for work.”

Wulfenbach grabbed the paper from his hand, and the pile on the bench, and strode stiff-legged to a seemingly innocuous drain in the floor. He pulled it up to reveal a trapdoor and ladder into the between-decks. “I’m going to kill you one day.”

“You'll have to get in line," the Storm King said dryly. "And stop squabbling with Belkinsburg for maintenance of their train terminal. The Corbettites are going to connect it to the Vienna line.”

Wulfenbach yanked the trapdoor savagely down over his head, and caught it just before it crashed loudly enough to be heard by passerby on the deck below.

Sturmvoraus stared after him for a long minute in silence. Then he looked around the empty lab and sighed. “It’s for the best,” he murmured, with the air of a man repeating an argument.

He gathered up the bottles and abandoned plate and dropped them down the disposal chute by the Extra-Dangerous Chemicals cabinet. The invisible sliding panel hissed open at a touch, and disappeared again into the wall behind him as he slipped through. After a couple minutes with no movement, the laboratory lights flickered off automatically.

They didn’t take into account the large white cat lying in the mouth of one of the ceiling vents, who was furiously licking his front paw because sometimes even hyper-intelligent cats have baser feline habits as tics when they are dumbfounded, or thinking very hard. He’s _been_ there to wait until Wulfenbach left and forgot the fish and chips like he usually did when his friends tried to trick him into eating something filling. (It wasn’t haut cuisine, but Krosp got fish sufficiently infrequently that he would settle for deep-fried.) This wasn’t the first time he’d substituted intel for a good meal, but _this_ …this _changed_ some things.

**Author's Note:**

> IT'S GOING TO BE OKAY; among other things Krosp has learned by eavesdropping from vents is that there's a Heterodyne living in secret somewhere, a real one, and he's going to seize the initiative and approach the jagergenerals and demand to meet her because he has information she'll want to know…it's going to be _okay._
> 
> (Details that didn't make the fic: Tarvek is pissed at Martellus because Tweedle somehow talked/bullied/annoyed some province into staying with the Wulfenbach Empire. He's not being fair about the target of his ire, because he knows full well it was Seffie's plan - she's trying to get Gil, who also knows she handles Martellus's politics, to consider her an ally...and romantic interest. Gil most certainly Does Not, but he's _painfully_ aware that he will almost certainly have no choice in the matter.)


End file.
